A weekend sweep for sports fans

Monday

Oct 14, 2013 at 2:43 PM

Dennis Miller

For the second weekend in a row all my teams won, I’m not sure that has ever happened before in the history of mankind. Can we make it three?

Things got going on Friday night as the St. Louis Cardinals were playing Game 1 of the National League Championship Series at the same time the Kirksville High School Tigers football team was playing their homecoming game against Mexico, (the city in Missouri not the country). There wasn’t a lot of offense in either game but the good guys won both and that’s all that matter. KHS played their best defensive game of the year in a 14 to 7 victory in a game that was similar to the Chiefs game in that the offense did enough to win and the defense was outstanding. I was very impressed with the defensive effort as the Tigers have now won two games in a row to move their record to 3 and 4. More on this game can be found elsewhere in the Kirksville Daily Express.

Meanwhile in St. Louis the Cardinals and Dodgers were engaged in an epic battle that would go on for over 5 hours and 13 innings before the Cardinals were able to bring home the winning run. The Dodgers took the lead in the third only to have the Cardinals tie it in the bottom of that inning and that was it for both teams until the 13th inning when the Cardinals got the winning hit off the bat of Carlos Beltran. Excellent pitching on both sides which would stay with us throughout the weekend.

Saturday began with the Missouri Tigers traveling to Athens, GA to play one of the best college football teams in the country. In what has to be one of the biggest wins in certainly recent history for the Tigers they were able to do something that most teams aren’t able to do, they defeated the mighty Bulldogs on their home field and looked outstanding doing it. I didn’t see this one coming at all and if you recall I didn’t give Mizzou much of a chance of winning in Friday’s blog. Saturday’s win vaulted the Tigers all the way up to the No. 14 ranking in the Top 25 college football rankings release yesterday. I think that’s a little generous but Saturday’s win was certainly a huge one. However, it did come with a price that has yet to be determined. Starting quarterback James Franklin suffered a dislocated shoulder and is out indefinitely. Speculation is he could be done for the season as it is a Grade Two separation which is apparently very serious but they won’t know for sure until the swelling goes down in a day or two. He is definitely out for several weeks at best which puts a redshirt freshman by the name of Maty Mauk into the starting role. We’ll have much more on that later in the week once we have a better idea of where things stand.

Truman State traveled to Liberty, MO on Saturday and thoroughly dominated a William Jewell team who wasn’t capable of doing anything other than scoring seven points and were lucky to get those. William Jewell only had one first down the first half and were dominated by the Bulldogs on both sides of the ball. Truman moves to 2 and 0 in Great Lakes Valley Conference play and 4 and 2 overall with Saturday’s 42 to 7 thrashing and heads into this week’s homecoming game with all sorts of momentum. We will of course have more on that game later in the week as well.

Then it was the Cardinals turn again as they played Game 2 of the NLCS against the Dodgers and we witnessed another outstanding pitching performance by rookie Michael Wacha who prolonged the Dodgers scoreless streak as the Cardinals won 1 to 0. Going into tonight’s game in LA, Cardinals pitching has held the Dodgers scoreless for something like 19 straight innings going back to the third inning of Game 1 on Friday night which was the last time the Dodgers scored a run. Hopefully Adam Wainright will be able to continue his excellent post season pitching tonight as he starts for the Cardinals.

Saturday night ended with Game 1 of the ALCS as the Detroit Tigers held the Boston Red Sox to one hit as they won 1 to 0. This game lasted almost as long as Friday night’ extra innings victory by the Cardinals. Can someone please explain to me why a game that had something like three hits the entire game and only one run scored took as long to play as a game that went four extra innings and had more runs and hits scored? There is no reason why a nine inning game with as few runs and hits as that one had should last as long as a thirteen inning game does.

Sunday began with a loud roar which was coming from Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, MO. The Kansas City Chiefs moved their record to 6 and 0 as they defeated the Oakland Raiders for the first time in seven years at Arrowhead Stadium. In the process a world record was set as Chiefs fans produced a 137.5 decibel reading late in the fourth quarter. This sets an all time noise record for an outdoor stadium. The Chiefs are now one of only two undefeated teams in the NFL, the other one being the Denver Broncos who are in the same division as the Chiefs. The Chiefs defense played another outstanding game while the offense struggled for the third week in a row. Yesterday’s game was a testament to just how good the Chiefs defense really is as the offense probably played their worst game of the season yesterday but the defense continues to be stellar and the Raiders who admittedly are not that good were never able to get any sort of momentum going. The Chiefs are better at finishing the game off in the fourth quarter than any team I can remember in recent memory. The Houston Texans drag themselves into Arrowhead Stadium for a game on Sunday. Of course we will have more on that game later in the week as well.

Meanwhile in Houston the St. Louis Rams were winning their second game in a row as they easily defeated the Texans yesterday. I did not see any of the game but it would certainly appear the Texans are headed in the wrong direction at an amazing rate and their fans are less than appreciative of their efforts. The Texans are probably looking forward to hitting the road this weekend where they will likely receive better treatment by the Chiefs fans than they have been getting at home.

Game 2 of the ALCS was last night and was another dominating pitching performance by the Detroit Tigers right up until the moment in the bottom of the 8th when David Ortiz stepped to the plate. That’s when the wheels fell off the buggy for the Tigers and Ortiz hit the first game tying grand slam home run in ALCS history and the Red Sox would go on to win it in the bottom of the ninth and the Tigers were left wondering what happened. Game 3 will be tomorrow afternoon in Detroit.

That isn’t even everything that happened this weekend but all we have time to cover in today’s blog. There is still a lot more to get to and a lot more to come this week. There will be a blog on Wednesday no matter what. I just simply didn’t have time to write one last Wednesday. We’ll be back then to continue our look at this very busy time of year for all sports. Keep the conversation going by joining me on Twitter at KDEBlog. Thanks for taking the time to check us out and please take time to read all the other excellent blogs on this site.